| Sun Fire X4500 Server Linux and Solaris OS Installation Guide |    
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| C H A P T E R 4 |
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux |
This chapter includes information on installing the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating systems and system specific drivers onto your Sun Fire X4500 server.
This chapter includes the following sections:
The two most common methods to install RHEL on your server are to use:
Installation Assistant (SIA) CD
Consult the following table to determine which sections in this document are relevant to the installation tasks that you want to perform.
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Meet the requirements for Installing RHEL from distribution media. |
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Before you install the RHEL software on a Sun Fire X4500 server, consult the following RHEL documentation.
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Contains late-breaking information about system requirements and system configuration for your version of the RHEL software. |
On the RHEL CD 1, and online at http://www.redhat.com/docs/ |
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A printed guide containing useful information to assist you during the installation of RHEL. |
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The expanded version of the printed Quick Installation Guide. |
Included on the Red Hat Documentation CD, and available for download at http://www.redhat.com/docs/ |
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration |
Available for download at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ |
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Available for download at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ |
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Information on configuring your server and Red Hat Linux for diskless booting. |
Available for download as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for the x86, Itanium |
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Available for download at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ |
Use TABLE 4-1 to see the default disk mapping and boot disk locations for the Sun Fire X4500 server:
| Note - If you add additional storage devices (such as a USB storage device), the device identifiers may change depending on which device the operating system looks at first during boot. |
To install the RHEL from local media, you must use either PXE network installation or the Sun Installation Assistant CD.
Installation from distribution media requires the following items:
To install RHEL 4 on the Sun Fire X4500 server, you need to obtain the RHEL 4 Update Media Kit.
To obtain this kit, log in at http://rhn.redhat.com.
You need your enterprise account information to download the updated ISO images. An enterprise account is an account that the customer creates to access Red Hat's support network after purchasing the RHEL media kit.
After you obtain the updated ISO images, write them to CDs and use them in place of the media you obtained with your RHEL 4 box. This updated media kit contains important drivers that are required by the Sun Fire X4500 server.
For the Sun Fire X4500 server, typically, the boot device nodes are /dev/sdy which is located at Slot 0, and /dev/sdac located at Slot 1.
Installing Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) 2.0.2.5 changes the controller IDs and the names of the system drives. For more information see “Upgrading to ILOM 2.0.2.5 Changes Controller IDs” in the Sun Fire X4500/X4540 Server Installation Guide.
The OS must be installed on one of these device nodes. You must also ensure that the GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) is installed on the boot device.
To ensure that GRUB gets installed on the boot device, you should perform the following step(s):
1. During RHEL installation (using the graphical user interface), in the Advanced GRUB menu, select the device /dev/disk_name.
2. Click the up-arrow until /dev/disk_name is at the top of the list. This process could require approximately 90 clicks.
Once the installation is complete, GRUB resides on /dev/disk_name.
| Note - RHEL 4.5 and 4.7 loads the USB storage device first when installing the system and RHEL 4.6 loads the USB storage device after the SCSI devices. |
The Sun Installation Assistant is a convenient, front-end application designed to assist you in installing SUSE or Red Hat Linux on your server. The Sun Installation Assistant supplements the standard installation utilities and procedures that ship with SUSE or Red Hat Linux; it does not replace them. Refer to Chapter 2 for more information.
PXE is a powerful and convenient solution for setting up a number of Sun Fire X4500 servers so their configuration is identical. The onboard network interface card (NIC) in your Sun Fire X4500 server supports the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) network booting protocol. The system BIOS and network interface BIOS on your server automatically query the network for a DHCP server. If that DHCP server on the network has been configured to support the PXE protocol and PXE image servers on the same network, then the BIOS on your system can be used to install a bootable RHEL image on your server.
| Note - During RHEL installation, you need to take special steps to identify the boot device, see Boot Disk ID On Linux Changes If Virtual Floppy Or CD-ROM Is Mounted At Installation for more information. |
To take advantage of RHEL and PXE on your network, you need to perform the following tasks.
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Obtain the updated media kit at http://rhn.redhat.com. |
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Preconfiguring Your Network to Support PXE Installation of RHEL |
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Configure your server to install from a RHEL image on a PXE server. |
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This section describes how to preconfigure your network running RHEL to support PXE installation of RHEL software on your server. These procedures assume that you already have a bootable server that is running a version of the RHEL OS to use as a PXE server.
Preconfiguring your network for PXE installation involves the following procedures:
If you do not have access to the Tools and Drivers CD, you can download the latest ISO image at http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4500/support.xml.
Preconfiguring your network for PXE installation requires the following items:
This section describes how to copy the PXE support files, which are required for PXE configurations, from the Tools and Drivers CD. This example uses RHEL 4 Update 4. Replace rhel4_64 with the file name that corresponds to your update.
1. Insert the Tools and Drivers CD into the DHCP/PXE server.
2. Create a temporary directory to copy the PXE support files if /tmp does not exist:
3. Enter the following commands to copy the files to the /tmp/ directory:
# cp /mnt/cdrom/support/pxeboot/rhel4_64-pxefiles.tar.gz /tmp/
4. Uncompress and extract the contents of the tar file into the /tmp/ directory:
# tar -zxvf rhel4_64-pxefiles.tar.gz
When you extract the file, a directory with all required files is created at /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/.
Complete the following steps on the server that will become your DHCP server.
1. Power on the server and log in as superuser.
2. Determine whether the DHCP server package is already installed on the server:
3. If the DHCP server package is not listed, insert the RHEL CD 5 and install the DHCP server:
# rpm -Uvh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/dhcp-*.rpm
4. Unmount the CD, by entering the following command:
5. Remove the CD from the server.
6. Set up your DHCP configuration file (for example, /etc/dhcpd.conf) so that only PXEClient requests receive PXEClient responses.
| Note - Refer to the dhcpd.conf man page for more information. |
Enter the following in the DHCP configuration file:
class "PXE" {match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) ="PXEClient"; option vendor-class-identifier "PXEClient"; vendor-option-space PXE; next-server n.n.n.n}
Where n.n.n.n is the PXE server’s IP address.
| Note - If the server does not already have a dhcpd.conf file in its /etc directory, you can copy the dhcpd.conf file from the sample DHCP configuration file in the /tmp/rhel4-pxefiles directory. |
7. In the DHCP configuration file, edit the server-identifier entry:
Where n.n.n.n is the PXE/dhcp server’s IP address.
8. Also in the DHCP configuration file, find the subnet entry fields:
subnet 1.2.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range dynamic-bootp 1.2.3.100 1.2.3.200;
option broadcast-address 1.2.3.225;
Edit the subnet, range, router and broadcast-address entries according to the PXE/dhcp server’s network configuration.
10. Configure the server to always start DHCP:
Complete the following steps on your DHCP server.
1. Determine whether the portmap server package is already installed on the server:
2. If portmap is not listed, insert the RHEL CD 2 and install the portmap service by entering the following commands:
# rpm -Uvh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/portmap-*
3. Unmount the CD, by entering the following command:
4. Remove the CD from the server.
Complete the following steps on your DHCP server.
1. Determine whether the TFTP server package is already installed on the server:
2. If the TFTP server package is not listed, insert the RHEL CD 4 and install the TFTP service by entering the following commands:
# rpm -Uvh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/tftp-server*
3. Unmount the CD, by entering the following command:
4. Remove the CD from the server.
5. Edit and save the /etc/xinetd.d/tftp file.
Complete the following steps on your DHCP server. The neopxe server is designed for use with a DHCP server that is running on the same system.
1. Install the neopxe boot server daemon onto the system that is your DHCP server:
# cd /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/neopxe-0.2.0
2. Append the path /usr/local/sbin/neopxe to the rc.local file by entering the following command, making sure to use two greater-than signs:
# echo "/usr/local/sbin/neopxe" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local
3. Copy the PXE Linux image from the /tmp/ directory:
# cp /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/pxelinux.0 /home/pxeboot
4. Configure the PXE Linux image:
# mkdir /home/pxeboot/pxelinux.cfg/
# touch /home/pxeboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
5. Edit the /usr/local/etc/neopxe.conf configuration file, which is read by neopxe at startup.
| Note - Refer to the neopxe.conf man page for more information. |
If the neopxe.conf file is not in the /usr/local/etc directory, you can copy it from the /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/neopxe-0.2.0/ directory.
A valid configuration file must have entries for each of the following lines, including at least one service line:
service=service-number,boot-server,boot-file,label
n.n.n.n is the IP address of your PXE server.
boot-prompt-string is the character string displayed during a network boot that prompts the user to press the F8 key for a boot menu.
timeout is the number of seconds the prompt is displayed before the server defaults to the first service for booting.
service-number is an integer in the range of 1 to 254 that identifies the boot service.
boot-server is the IP address of the boot server for that boot service.
boot-file is the name of the boot file that is read from your /home/pxeboot directory.
label is the text string that is displayed when the boot menu is invoked by pressing the F8 key.
service=1,192.168.0.1,pxelinux.0,Linux
service=2,192.169.0.1,nbp.unknown,Solaris
Complete the following steps on your DHCP server.
1. Determine whether the NFS service package is already installed on the server:
2. If the NFS service package is not listed, insert the RHEL CD 2 and install the NFS service with the following commands:
# rpm -Uvh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/nfs-utils-*
3. Remove the CD from the server after you enter the following command:
4. Edit and save the /etc/exports file to add the following line to it:
/home/pxeboot *(no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,insecure)
6. Configure the server to always start the NFS service:
If you enabled firewall security when you installed RHEL software on the system that will become your PXE server, complete the following steps to disable the firewall so that PXE clients can download from the server.
3. Stop the ipchains service from starting when you restart the server:
4. Stop the iptables service from starting when you restart the server:
| Note - You might encounter error messages if the ipchains service is not installed on the server. You can safely ignore these messages. |
When you have completed all the previous configuration steps, do the following.
1. Reboot the PXE/DHCP server.
2. Refer to the next section, Creating a PXE Install Image on the PXE Server.
This procedure describes how to create a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) install image on the same server that is your DHCP server so that it also acts as your PXE server. The PXE server provides the OS files to your PXE client.
Before you install a RHEL image on your PXE server, you must configure your Linux network to support PXE images. See Preconfiguring Your Network to Support PXE Installation of RHEL.
The PXE installation procedure requires the following items:
1. Insert the Tools and Drivers CD into the CD/DVD drive of the DHCP/PXE server.
The following examples refer to RHEL 4, Update 4; replace rhel4 with the file name that corresponds to your update.
2. Enter the following commands to copy the Sun support files from the CD to the /tmp directory on your DHCP/PXE server:
# cp -a /mnt/cdrom/support/pxeboot/rhel4_64-pxefiles.tar.gz /tmp
# tar -zxvf rhel4_64-pxefiles.tar.gz
3. Create a directory to hold the RHEL software:
# mkdir -p /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
4. For each RHEL distribution CD, enter the following commands to copy the contents of the distribution CD to the appropriate PXE target subdirectory:
| Note - Eject and insert RHEL CDs only when the CD/DVD drive is unmounted. |
# cp -a /mnt/cdrom/* /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
5. Copy the kickstart file ks.cfg to your PXE server:
# cp /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/ks.cfg /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
The kickstart configuration file contains a configuration that might not be optimal for your operating environment. Modify the file as necessary to suit your environment.
6. Copy the image from the PXE files that you uncompressed in Step 2 into the PXE image by entering the following command:
# cp /tmp/rhel4_64-pxefiles/initrd.img /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
7. Copy the updated SATA driver rpm file found on the Tools and Drivers CD to the PXE target directory.
a. Mount the Tools and Drivers CD by entering the command:
b. Copy over the SATA driver rpm file that matches your version of the kernel
| Note - You can determine the version of the kernel you have by enter the command uname -a at the command line. |
# cp /mnt/cdrom/linux/drivers/mvSatalinux-3.6.3_2-2.6.9_42.ELsmp_1.x86_64.rpm /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
# cp /mnt/cdrom/linux/drivers/mvSatalinux-3.6.3_2-2.6.9_55.ELsmp_1.x86_64.rpm /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
c. Unmount the Tools and Drivers CD by entering the command:
8. On your PXE server, edit and save the kickstart file, /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/ks.cfg.
Edit the nfs line is as follows:
nfs --server n.n.n.n --dir /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
Where n.n.n.n is the IP address of your PXE server. Ensure that the location indicated after --dir is pointing to the top level of your image.
9. Add the following entry to the file /home/pxeboot/pxelinux.cfg/default:
| Note - Enter the text block from append through ks.cfg as one continuous string with no returns. |
default rhel4_64
label rhel4_64
kernel rhel4_64/vmlinuz
append ksdevice=eth0 console=tty0 load_ramdisk=1
initrd=rhel4_64/initrd.img network
ks=nfs:n.n.n.n:/home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/ks.cfg
Where n.n.n.n is the IP address of your PXE server.
| Note - For console-based installations, add console=ttyS0,9600 to the append line. |
10. Save the modified version of the /home/pxeboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file.
11. Insert the RHEL distribution CD1 into the CD/DVD drive of the DHCP/PXE server.
# cp /mnt/cdrom/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz /home/pxeboot/rhel4_64/
This procedure describes how to configure your Sun Fire X4500 server to initiate the request to download the boot image file from the PXE/DHCP server and how to install the RHEL boot image onto your Sun Fire X4500 server.
Before you configure your server to install RHEL from a PXE server, you need to have done the following:
To configure your server to install a RHEL image from a PXE server, do the following.
1. Connect the PXE client to the same network as the PXE server, and power on the PXE client.
The PXE client is the target Sun Fire X4500 server to which you are installing RHEL software.
2. When the PXE client prompts you for a network boot, press the F12 key.
The PXE client connects to the PXE server and attempts to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server.
3. When prompted, press the F8 key to begin downloading the PXE boot image.
4. At the boot: prompt, enter in the label you gave the image when you installed a RHEL image on the PXE server.
The RHEL install image downloads onto the target Sun Fire X4500 server.
5. To configure the Linux OS for your server, refer to the manual that is shipped with your RHEL media kit.
See Updating the RHEL OS.
This procedure describes how to update the RHEL OS.
Since software is constantly being updated, it is possible that your distribution media might not contain the most up-to-date versions of the OS. This procedure explains how to update a RHEL installation to the latest OS. The following procedure assumes that you have already installed the RHEL software on the Sun Fire X4500 server.
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Follow these steps to update the OS software. These procedures assume that your system has access to the internet.
1. Set up the up2date program on the server.
Refer to the documentation included with your RHEL media kit for details.
Select the kernel packages in the available package updates section.
You may need to update the RHEL SCSI drivers. You can find a list of the most recent drivers, and instructions for installing them, in the linux/drivers directory of your Tools and Drivers CD.
| Note - If you use SIA to install your OS, it installs the correct drivers automatically. |
| Sun Fire X4500 Server Linux and Solaris OS Installation Guide | 819-4362-17 |
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Copyright © 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
To Copy PXE Files From the Tools and Drivers C